Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to wireless communication, and more specifically, but not exclusively, to prioritized request-to-send and clear-to-send (RTS-CTS) resources.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communication for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance wireless communication technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience.
Consider, for example, a communication network including many device-to-device (D2D) links. In some scenarios, the links contend for the communication channel using a connection scheduling algorithm based on request-to-send (RTS) and clear-to-send (CTS). As part of physical layer (PHY) connection setup, each link acquires a locally unique RTS-CTS resource pair and subsequently uses this RTS-CTS resource to participate in distributed link scheduling. Here, an RTS-CTS handshake is employed whereby a priority is associated with each link's RTS-CTS signal. In case of contention between links, relatively higher priority links get preferential access to the channel and lower priority links yield. The links that finally access the communication channel form an independent set (e.g., the links don't strongly interfere with each other). In such a network, certain timeslots may be designated for D2D connection setup. In this way, idle devices may switch to a low power (sleep) mode between these designated timeslots, thereby conserving battery power.